


livelihood

by ivelostmyspectacles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, Family, Family Bonding, Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 19:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18581497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/ivelostmyspectacles
Summary: “You’ve got a nice place here, Noct. With a great view.”“Yeah.”“You can see all of Insomnia.”“Yeah. All of your city.”Dad turns to look at him. He smiles that old, familiar crinkly-eyed smile, and says“ourcity, son.”





	livelihood

**_What is your schedule?_ **

It’s a simple enough question, but it’s who it’s from that makes Noctis do a double take at the name. His dad doesn’t usually text him, not for anything so… _normal,_ like asking about his schedule. And anyway, he’s pretty sure Dad can find out his schedule without asking, or knows already. So the text is out of the blue, and his reply is just as confused.

**_huh?_ **

**_Your schedule.  
Are you "free to hang?"_ **

**_what's this about, dad?_ **

He can hear the quotation marks. Gods. He thinks it’s Prompto who’s trying to teach him how to text, more than Noct is, anyway, and he’s going to kill him for giving his dad clearance to type free to hang like that. But that’s for another day. Sometime else, because this is still really weird.

 _I thought I would drop_  
by to see my son at  
his new apartment.

**_...|_ **

Wait. Wait. What? He was… going to come here? To his apartment? Which wasn’t even _new_ anymore, because he’d been here for _weeks…_ but…

Noct raises his head from the couch cushion, glancing at the scattered manga and discarded clothes, empty takeout containers and the mountains of paperwork he hadn’t _begun_ to look at. And everything else he was going to do tomorrow and would inevitably _not_ do tomorrow. Dad was coming _here?!_

_**when?** _

_**I thought at 4:30.** _

He glances at the clock. Quarter til three. He curses out loud and propels himself up. There’s no way he can clean all this up before four-thirty… part of him reminds himself that he can say _no,_ that this is _his_ apartment so he can do what he likes. But… Dad never asks to come over. Dad never does… _anything_ with him, really, and Noct gets that, he _does,_ but… Gods, he _wants_ to spend time with him. And he’d rather eat his phone than admit that in so many words.

He hesitates with his thumb on the screen, prepared to type out a response, but there’s truly no question. Not really. His answer probably gives him away, anyway.

                                      **_sure, that'd be cool_**

**_I'll look forward to it.  
C U L8R_ **

He doesn’t bother replying to that– Dad’ll keep texting him like that if he acknowledges it, so he doesn’t, and besides, he’s already swiping to his contacts to call someone else.

_“Noct? Something wrong?”_

“Iggy, dad’s coming over to my place in, like, an hour and a half?!”

Quiet from the other end, and then, _“since when?”_

“Since two seconds ago!” He’s panicking, just a little. “Are you– can you come over and help me… _not_ look like I’ve been a hot mess since I’ve moved out?”

Ignis doesn’t hesitate. His voice is serious when he replies. _“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Start without me.”_

Noct agrees, and does, and starts shoving as much as he can into as many drawers as possible.

 

 

“Hey… Dad.”

It’s weird, seeing Dad in the doorway of his apartment. It hadn’t been often that he’d come to his room at the Citadel, let alone this… he hadn’t even seen the apartment before Noct had moved in. (Okay, he probably _had,_ but Noct hadn’t known about it.) He’s even dressed down, a little, in a suit neither of them have probably seen in years. It’s weird, and definitely a little awkward, and… good. It’s good.

He gestures him in, and Regis starts gawking about the place once he’s taken his shoes off.

“This is a nice apartment, Noctis… a shame the council had my undivided attention for so long. I could have toured them with you.”

His shrug is small, but feels monumental, in a way. “Figured it out on my own. Gotta do that and all now.” Regis looks around at him, and for a second, Noct feels vaguely tongue-tied. Like he’s said something he shouldn’t have. He hadn’t moved out to get away from _them,_ he’d moved out to get away from… _it._ The responsibility. The reminders. Watching his dad literally _die._ “I mean,” he adds quickly, “‘s what being an adult’s all about, huh?”

“My Noct…” Dad stares for a few seconds too long, and Noctis wants to huff at the look on his face. _Mushy._ “Growing up to be such a fine young man,” Regis continues, and Noct’s once again stunned into silence when he _reaches down and ruffles his hair._

Only silent for a minute, though. He splutters and ducks out of the way, muttering off a “quit it” before he can think twice.

“It’s very neat.” Regis peeks into the bathroom– scrubbed within an inch of its life by Iggy, no doubt– on the way to the living room. “With all of the boxes that left the Citadel, I almost expected things to be a bit more… _untidy.”_

“Untidy?” he repeats. He wants to sound incredulous, but it comes out too nervous given the amount of crap he’s piled into his bedroom and is praying Dad doesn’t open the door to. “Come on, _me?_ Untidy?”

Regis glances over his shoulder, a raised eyebrow and muted humor in every line in his face. “I don’t suppose it has anything to do with Ignis _casually_ leaving right as I came in?”

“You, er– saw that.” _Damn._ “Maybe he helped me clean up a little,” he admits, and just like that, the tension is broken when his dad actually _laughs._

It’s still weird, but… kind of _amazing_ , because it reminds Noct of when he was younger and Dad would always take him and Ignis out to the gardens to play hide and seek– when Dad would hide _with_ them as a concerned, out of the loop Clarus had always tried to find them. More than once Dad had given them away by laughing.

Noct had never been able to stop himself laughing with him, young and impressionable and amused by anything. But maybe he’s not so different now, because he’s laughing even as he wants to groan. “How’d you know?” It’s a halfhearted complaint as he shoves his hands in his pockets. “You couldn’t guess just from him being here.”

“He was being _too_ casual,” Regis says. “I think he was surprised to see me. He got quite flustered.”

“Huh.” He should have known nothing would get by Dad, anyway. “Sounds like him.”

“And I quite understand the mad dash to clean up last minute– oh?” His fingers catch against a dog-earred manga, only hastily shoved into the shelf. “What’s this?” he asks, a lilt to his voice that Noct recognizes, too, and then he watches with some kind of horror as his dad plucks the book completely from the shelf.

“Dad!” he complains, and nearly lunges forward to grab it back. It’s not like it’s anything _bad_ and it’s not like Regis doesn’t know he reads this stuff, hell, he’d bought him most of it when he lived in the Citadel, but… “Don’t read that.”

“Why?” Regis tilts his head, comical, like the stray dog down the street that’s looking for a treat. Or maybe that he’s already found one. “Is it naughty comics?” he asks, voice low, and exaggerated, and Noct thinks, nope, he’s just actually gonna die on the spot.

 _“No!”_ He snatches it back and shoves it into the drawer. Except the drawer’s kind of already got too much crap stuffed into it, so he just kind of crams it in and sidles in front of it when it won’t close. “Jeez… come on, go sit down, I’ll get you something to drink. Oh, Ignis made sandwiches, too, do you want those?”

“Ignis’s cooking? I wouldn’t pass it up.”

“It’s not really _cooking,”_ Noct murmurs, but he sticks his head in the refrigerator to hide his smile, anyway. “But what do you want to drink first…?”

  
 

“They’re getting restless.”

It’s probably because it’s late, because it never really gets completely dark in town but Dad’s gone out on the balcony anyway. No one’ll notice. It was amazing what people could overlook if they weren’t expecting it. The prince of Lucis living in the center of them all, in an unassuming apartment with a part time job.

“They want me to go back to work.” His voice is wistful. Or maybe Noct just imagines it. Regis _looks_ younger, like this, despite the salt and pepper hair and the way he leans heavily on the rail. A bit more like the dad he remembers from his childhood.

Noct swallows, and slips out onto the balcony. “Yeah, probably.”

“You’ve got a nice place here, Noct,” he says. Noct watches as his hair blows in the breeze. He feels transfixed. “With a great view.”

“Yeah.” It seems inadequate, but Noctis can’t find anything else to say.

“You can see all of Insomnia.”

“Yeah.” He tries again. “All of your city.”

Dad turns to look at him. He smiles that old, familiar crinkly-eyed smile, and says _“our_ city, son.”

For the third time, all Noct can say is “yeah.”

Regis looks back out across the city. The air is cold and crisp and feels like the impending winter that awaits them. A shudder crawls down Noctis’s spine, and then he dares to take another step forward.

“Are you… going, then?”

“What, are you trying to get rid of your old man?”

“No, it’s not… you know it’s not like that,” Noct mutters, and Regis chuckles.

“I think I’ll stay awhile longer.” A side glance, eyebrows raised in an amused glimpse towards him. “If that’s okay?”

“That’s…” _fine, great, please stay._ “Yeah. That’s okay,” Noctis says as absently as he can manage, and braces his arms on the railing as he stands next to his dad.

**Author's Note:**

> my mod entry for our _of the night_ zine! it was SO much fun to be able to not only put this zine together, but participate as well; everyone was so kind and eager to show their love for Noct!


End file.
